In the States we have memorials in the places where battles were fought. There were battles to secure freedom for the colonists, battles to prove northern superiority, battles to displace the native peoples of our lands, and others as well. We also have a number of memorials which serve to remind us of those we have lost in foreign lands. Today, in Gallipoli, I visited the memorials erected in honor of the Australians, Canadians, English, French, New Zealanders, and Turkish who died during the invasion of the peninsula in 1915 and 1916.
I first learned of this battle through a song on a Pogues album. And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda is a song from the perspective of an old man who is recalling the life he had as a patriot of Australia. This song and the Psalms were the two poetic works most instrumental in the healing of my mind and heart after I lost something very dear to me in 2009. And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the seemingly senseless ways we treat our fellow man. The scars and bewilderment of loss are universal.
Two days ago I was having a conversation with the concierge at the hostel I am staying at. He mentioned some of the places that people who are visiting Istanbul like to visit. He told me that Troy was not very good, but that there is a place called Çanakkale with a tour that people enjoy quite a bit. I told him how interesting I found that name because it sounded similar to Gallipoli which is the name of a place in a song I love. Gallipoli is what English speakers call Çanakkale, and I knew immediately after he told me that that I had to go there.
I was already there, it turns out. We are all there. Each person reading this has a brother in some distant way who died either in the water, or the sand, climbing a hill or digging the next inches of an endless trench. It wasn’t until I heard that song by the Pogues for the first time that I knew to even think of this place. The pines are like Bend, Oregon or Split, Croatia. The grass is like Yakima, Washington or Bizerte, Tunisia. The water is like Sanibel Island, Florida or Zihuatanejo, Mexico. But the blood is like no place and every place. The blood is like a home we will never find, a place in which we will always dwell, an embrace from Mother Earth, a gift from Father God.
albaniacalling 